Getting to Siem Reap was Half the Battle

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We almost didn't make it to Cambodia.

Our original plan to get to Cambodia was fly from Manila to Bangkok, stay there a few days, and take a bus or train to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Political protests and elections in Bangkok deterred us from visiting so we decided to just fly out of Bankok to Cambodia. Easier said than done.

After getting off our Manila to Bangkok flight, we showed our Angkor Air tickets to some workers who pointed in the general direction we needed to go. We had two hours between flights which I felt comfortable. Janie felt uneasy and was rushing us around. I'm glad she did. After an hour of airport employees taking us on a wild goose chase to find the Angkor Air counters, we were destined to give up on our flight. No one knew where our ticketing counters were. Was this airline THAT small?

I happened to try one more Info kiosk. She was able to give us an answer...one that we didn't want to hear. With One Hour left, we needed to exit out of the whole airport: meaning we needed to exit customs and immigration, go to the ticketing area in the front, up to 4th floor and back down to the 2nd floor...all within 15 minutes to make the ticketing counter. All ticketing counters close 45 minutes before boarding. Janie broke down...I was pissed, and worried. There was no way in hell we would be stuck in Bangkok airport and miss Siem Reap. Determined, we started sprinting in the haphazard direction that the info clerk told us. Every 100 feet asking a new person where to go. Our arrival at immigration took the wind out of our sails. A huge foreigner line and with approximately 12 minutes to spare. I flagged down an attendant frantically pointing to our passes. She understood the urgency and expedited us to the Thai citizenship line. That took us about 5 minutes. Now, on to the ticket counters which was a sea of people and lines. One of the largest ticketing areas that I've seen. 50 yard rows of ticketing area. One row for each letter of the alphabet. I ran to a info clerk who proceed to say "T"... "T", but the he pointed to the letter "G". SHIT...5 minutes. During this time Janie was asking other airline personnel who told us "Q". "Q" was the right one! We made it with a few minutes to spare. I guess G and Q are easily confused and now makes sense. It felt like we were part of Amazing Race TV Show to be sprinting through the airport. My heart is racing as a write about this. With 45 minutes to spare, we successfully went BACK through customs and immigration and found our gate and boarded our plane to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Arrival to Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our arrival to Siem Reap was via Prop airplane that took 55 minutes. It was funny that they provided a full meal for such a short flight yet our other flights of 3-4 hours we didn't even get water.

Going through customs and immigration is different in every country. Cambodia takes the cake for level of bureaucracy. Let me stage this scene: Picture a 60 foot counter space with an Official sitting every few feet. All visitors must wait in one line to see the first Official on the far left side of the counter. We hand over our passports to the official who takes your $25US each. TIP: Bring a few extra passport photos or they will charge you $2 to take a picture of you. I don't know why...just do it.  The Official then holds on to the passports (which left us uneasy). Our passports then proceeded to be passed down a line of at least 20 officials who proceed to check out our passport all the way to the end of the line. Our names were then called out at the end of the line. Everything was good to go. It was funny to see all the tourists trying to figure out what was going on. That must suck to be the first and last Official in the line because they are the ones doing all the work. The 18 others just pass passports down the line all day with their cruise government job. Does that sound like your job?


Next Blog: Visiting Angkor Wat Temples and flying to Kuala Lumpur.

=DK

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